Dried fish is an excellent snack with cold beer in the hot season, but you can't always buy really high-quality and tasty goods in stores. Therefore, fish is often dried at home, resulting in a tasty and fresh appetizer - however, there are a few basic rules to follow to prepare it.
Preparation for drying
To prepare the fish for drying, rinse it under cold water and carefully gut it, then place it in a plastic or enamel bowl (do not use metal containers). Cover the bottom of the dish with an approximately 2-3 mm layer of coarse salt and lay the fish carcasses in dense layers - tummy to tummy, tail to head. Sprinkle the first layer of fish with plenty of salt and lay on top of the second row of fish - with the last fish layer completely covered with salt. After salting all the fish, cover the dish with a lid slightly less than the diameter of the dish itself.
To give future dried carcasses a special taste and aroma, put a few bay leaves and spices suitable for fish between their layers.
Place a load weighing up to two kilograms on the lid of the dish and place the container with the salted fish in a cold, dark place - for example, in the cellar or on the lower shelf of the refrigerator. Leave the fish there for three days, then remove it from the dishes and wash it thoroughly under running cold water to remove mucus and salt. If you want a lightly salted snack, rinse the fish for 10-15 minutes, and then leave it in a colander to let the water drain naturally. Then dry the fish with paper towels and go directly to the drying process.
Drying fish
To dry the prepared fish, take fishing line, rope, simple paper clips or hooks that you can make yourself from elastic steel wire in the shape of the letter Z. Pass the rope or hook through the lower lip or eye of the fish - so all its internal fat will remain inside it, in as a result, the dried snack will turn out to be more tender and juicy, and not tough like a sole. Having strung all the carcasses, hang them in any well-ventilated place - for example, in a city apartment you can dry a fish on the balcony, and in a country house a forest or a garden would be an ideal solution. At the same time, hang the fish only in dry and warm weather, as precipitation and high humidity will make it soaked in moisture and frozen.
Do not dry fish on the balcony, if freshly washed linen is hung on it, it will be saturated with a fishy smell, which will disappear from it for a very long time.
Usually, the fish is dried qualitatively in five to nine days, but if desired, this process can be significantly accelerated. To do this, hang the fish over a gas stove at a height of at least 80 centimeters from the burners - if you hang it lower, the fish will boil and lose its taste obtained during the salting process. Using this method, you will get a delicious dried fish in a few days - wrap the finished snack in cellophane wrap and put it on the middle or bottom shelf of the refrigerator. There it can be stored for quite a long time - the main thing is not to put it in the freezer, where the fish will freeze and become saturated with ice moisture, after which it will turn out to be a very, very mediocre snack for beer.
